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SNC-Lavalin, which has hung out the For Sale sign on its stake of Highway 407, says the market might be right for a deal sooner than anticipated.

“The selling environment, which we see is largely favourable at this point in time, is one of the drivers to pull it forward,” said president and chief executive officer Robert Card during a conference call with analysts on Friday.

SNC-Lavalin is looking at the best way to position the asset to boost value, he said.

In 1999, SNC spent $175 million for stake of about 23 per cent, and then sold part of its holding in 2002 for $178.2 million. It now owns almost 17 per cent.

Some analysts have speculated that the stake could be worth as much a $3 billion.

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“We still expect that action may occur sooner rather than later within our original mid term of one- to three-year projection,” Card added.

Any proposed sale isn’t related to a need for cash, despite the looming $2.1 billion purchase of Kentz Corp., a U.K.-based global engineering firm that provides services to the oil and gas sectors.

Card, who took over the Montreal-based company in 2012 after a corruption scandal, is focused on returning to the company to engineering and construction roots by selling off certain assets.

SNC-Lavalin also has an agreement to sell AltaLink, the Alberta electric utility, to Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway for $3.2 billion. That deal is expected to close later this year.

When asked by analysts what SNC-Lavalin would intend to do with the proceeds from AltaLink or Highway 407, Card said the company would consider different options including other acquisitions or possibly a share buyback or dividends.

“What I have said in the past is I didn’t see us sitting on a heap of cash for an indefinite period with nothing in mind,” he said.

However, Card said the company is not driven by a mergers and acquisitions strategy, but wants to be more focused on the development front, not just principally following P3 (public-private partnership) projects.

“We’ll be looking for the next AltaLink or 407,” he said. “I’ve cautioned people that this is like nuclear power — you should never bet too much on this, because there a lot of people out there looking for that.

“We’ll be looking at assets that we think are parked in the corner, that if we did some capital improvements to, we could highlight them better,” Card said. “That’s what we’ll be looking to do.”

Although the Montreal-based company reported a $32.1 million profit in the second quarter, it missed expectations. Net income attributable to shareholders equalled 21 cents per share for the three months ended June 30, compared to a $37.7 million, 25 cents per share loss a year earlier.

The results included $25.9 million of expenses related to the proposed $2.1-billion acquisition of U.K.-based Kentz Corp. Excluding one-time items, adjusted earnings equalled 38 cents per share, well short of the 63 cents per share forecast by analysts.

Revenues were nearly $1.7 billion, down from $1.94 billion in the year-ago period, as higher concessions revenues were more than offset by decreases in its core engineering and construction division.

Infrastructure concession investment profits increased 17.8 per cent to $78.9 million due to higher net income at AltaLink, and higher dividends from its stake Highway 407.

Maxim Sytchev of Dundee Capital Markets said the results shows the impact of challenging projects.

“All-in, not a lot of silver lining in the short-term,” the analyst wrote in a report.

He said the focus is now on a possible sale of its investment in Highway 407 and the potential return to normalized profitability in 2015 once projects, such as the $1.3- billion superhospital in Montreal, are completed.

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